


A Man of Principle

by ElDiablito_SF



Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Prison Sex, Shaving, UST, Utley is doomed, and finally RST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 19:37:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15226389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: Eleanor Guthrie should have probably picked a different person to guard Flint.~~~~This the fic I should have written as a prequel toOn the Horizon





	A Man of Principle

**Author's Note:**

> Follow up on my tradition of posting sexiness on my own birthday: enjoy!  
> Created for Black Sails Rarepair Appreciation Week :D
> 
> Thanks to Anette for awesome betaing <3

The torch flickered in Utley’s hand, casting a shadow along the fortress wall that hovered over him like a phantasm. Elsewhere, the sound of distant laughter flew into the embrasure and bounced off the wall like a confused bat. Their men were doing their best to entertain themselves while under siege. Although, come to think of it, the laughter could have very well come from the pirates beneath the fort’s walls, for they had a lot more to be merry about than those who had taken refuge behind the old, heavy gates.

His own steps echoed down the long hallway. “Ma’am,” he called, rapping twice on the door separating him from the two people inside the cell.

“I’m fine, Lieutenant,” the Governor’s wife had sounded… well, surprisingly calm. She had asked to be left alone with the prisoner and Utley had allowed that privacy to extend about ten paces from the door before he had felt compelled to come back and check on his charge.

The grated aperture revealed Eleanor Guthrie’s unharmed form. “Ma’am, I do not like the thought of you being alone with him.”

“Lieutenant, I have spent many years in this man’s company and I’m very well aware of how to comport myself in his presence, which is, quite frankly, more than any man in this fort can currently claim. Yourself included.”

“Ma’am,” was all Utley had to offer, giving her a curt, if dubious, nod. His eyes cast behind her, where the man - the pirate menace - was sat on the solitary prison cot with the carefree ease of one lounging in the finest salon, one leg dangling off the bed, the other bent and propped firmly into the mattress, opening up a sort of embrasure of his own between those powerful thighs.

Utley turned his back towards the door again and breathed, eyes rolled towards the dark, vaulted ceiling. A formless frisson passed through Utley’s bones, like a distant drumming tattoo summoning him to battle. It was almost too long ago to recall the first time he had ever marched upon the enemy, and yet, it was impossible to forget that thrill, that nascent fear, the thrall of battle, men clashing against one another with primal ferocity. Red blood spattering his red coat, his face, his hands. Someone’s dying grip slipping and brushing against his cock, only to find himself half-hard in the middle of slaughter. That’s how he had felt in the presence of this man, Captain Flint: half-hard and ready to kill, ready to run, ready to…

“Give him anything he needs,” the Governess said, standing before him like a ghost emerged from the dark wall.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said and escorted her down the corridor before he could retrace his steps and place himself on guard at the heavy door. Not because she was explicitly expecting this - any number of men whom he’d outranked could stand guard for Flint - but because he could not bring himself to be anywhere else.

A soft melody reached his ears from within. Flint had apparently been in a bit of a singing mood. Some kind of an old mariner’s shanty that Utley could not quite place, or perhaps a lullaby, for Flint’s voice was surprisingly soothing all things considered (that nothing about Flint should have been particularly comforting). And yet.

“The Governess said to give you anything you need,” Utley finally spoke, looking through the grated aperture. Inside the cell, shadows danced around Flint’s form like witches at their Sabbath. Flint moved, his body flowing through the room as if he too had been a ship and the darkness his sea, and Utley caught himself shivering on the other side of the heavy door.

“I could use a good book,” Flint said as he stopped about a foot from the door. If Utley’s arms were thin enough to fit through the grating, he could touch him. Fortunately, he’d ceased being that lanky boy many years ago. “Lieutenant…?”

“Utley. Sebastian Utley.” He’d bitten his tongue and cursed it. There had not been a reason to give the man, the enemy, his Christian name.

“James Flint.”

“I know who you are.”

“I could also go for some food and water, if you’re feeling hospitable.”

Utley was having many feelings, but he was not sure if hospitable could be counted among them. “I’ll try to find you a book,” he finally said. “Can’t speak for its finer qualities, you understand.”

“I do.” The pirate captain smiled, a strange smile that felt too private for what they were to each other. Jailer and prisoner, he supposed, was the closest thing they could charitably be. “If it shan’t be good, I’d be grateful if it were long,” Flint said, and again, a strange thrill ran up and down Utley’s spine and he quickly turned from the aperture, chasing away the shadowy image of Flint’s face. He could still see it, oddly imprinted on the backs of his own eyelids.

 

 

 

***

Utley was never much of a reader himself, but he did go out of his way to make sure that the tome he’d picked up was neither a Bible nor a copy of something authored by the Governor himself. Something told him that would not have been much appreciated. He’d stared at the bread and the cheese far longer than was strictly necessary while weighing the reality of their siege against his own human decency. Then he had cut a larger slice than he had originally planned for. Who knew when was the last time Flint ate, he’d said to himself. He didn’t want their hostage dying of hunger on his watch. That would be… unprofessional, to say nothing of unchristian.

His grandmother had instilled in him the fear of unchristian qualities. She had been a Huguenot herself, a last vestige of those who had been forced to leave France after the Edict of Fontainebleau. (His _grandmère_ always did feel the need to spit upon the ground when speaking of it.) It does make one take one’s faith more seriously if one is regularly persecuted for it, Utley supposed in retrospect.

_Ne sommes-nous pas chrétiens?_ Are we not Christians? He could no longer tell with any amount of certainty. At the very least, he could still bring Flint this book.

He was unable to properly measure the depth and breadth of Flint’s gratitude, but he did feel the brush of the man’s fingers against his own when the prisoner took the book from him, and his hand had not stopped burning since. Like a brand. Everything about that man was a brand. His eyes, his voice, his mouth.

“I don’t want to trouble you, Lieutenant Utley.”

“No trouble at all,” he’d said. It baffled him, truly, this insistence on being so amenable.

Inside his cell that night, Flint slept. Utley knew because he could hear the soft snores through the aperture as he leaned on the other side of the door, shunning his own bed. They said that one knew a guilty man by the way he slept when finally captured. But Flint had not been captured, he had walked into those tunnels of his own accord, and remained at his own wishes. It was difficult to discern which of the two of them was the true prisoner, after all. Ostensibly, neither one of them was free to leave. Yet, here Flint slept, while Utley sat in vigil.

 

 

 

***

“How’s the book?” Utley asked, switching an empty tray for a new one, with an equally large piece of bread, albeit a more modest slice of cheese.

“It will do,” Flint replied, his eyes never leaving Utley’s face. He felt them as surely as if Flint had reached out and placed his entire hand against his skin. He licked his lips and instructed his eyes not to wander. “I could use a wash and a shave though.”

“I can’t give you a straight blade,” Utley replied. His gaze met Flint’s in a game of seeming chicken. Who would blink first?

“I’m sure Miss Guthrie… the Governess would not want her guest to turn into a poorly kept topiary under your care. And besides, I’m still covered in the blood of your brothers in arms, a situation one would think you’d hasten to remedy.”

Utley could not withhold a sneer at that obvious provocation. He was being tested, and he was not in the mood to play the dancing monkey for this man’s entertainment. No matter what kind of nostalgia the Governess still held for him from her days of renown piratical proclivities.

“I’m sure I don’t have to explain this to you,” Flint said, eyeing Utley’s scalp with measured intent, “but it’s all getting incredibly itchy.”

“What is?” Utley asked in a scandalized tone.

“My head. My hair is growing back out.”

Utley’s own head conjured up a sympathetic itch at that. Flint was an asshole, but he was an asshole who shared his predilection for not giving the enemy anything to grab onto, or so it seemed.

“Look, if I bring you something to clean and shave with,” he started, reluctantly, “I’m going to have to remain here for the duration.”

“I am your prisoner,” Flint said with an insouciant shrug. The prick. Utley’s hand itched too, and he told himself it was with the desire to slap the smugness off this man’s face.

Utley cursed under his breath as he made his way back to Flint’s cell. One of his men had followed him down, carrying a tray that held a towel, a basin of water, a folded razor, and a small bar of soap. If Utley was to play barber, he would refuse to also play the fetching mule. He could definitely use a proper shave himself and the thought that he’d be arranging this luxury for a prisoner while his own face overgrew in ignominity burned Utley to the core of whatever ego he had not allowed his army experience to subsume.

Flint had been reading, his thighs once more thrown akimbo in lazy repose. His entire body seemed to spill across the mattress in waves. He was an oasis that tempted to slake Utley’s thirst if only he’d kneel at his shores. Instead, Utley had dismissed his fellow soldier and shut the door.

“I’ll have to do this myself,” he said with unwavering firmness. “The Governess implied to treat you with leniency, but I do not think that extends to handing you deadly weapons. And I’m not going to be the fool who hands the infamous Captain Flint a blade, even one as short as this.” He opened the straight blade and watched as an errant ray of sunlight played against the edge of the sharpened steel.

“And you think I will be the fool who bares his throat to a man wearing a red coat?” Flint asked, one eyebrow raised in poignant eloquence.

Utley allowed himself a small smile. “I can remove the coat, if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

“Then at least neither one of us will be wearing a coat.”

Utley cleared his throat and moved the tray towards the prisoner. “You can go ahead and clean yourself,” he said. He wasn’t going to turn his back on Flint, but he did make it a point to take a few steps back to give him some semblance of privacy. Then, he unbuckled his belt and carefully lay his sword upon the table pressed up against the wall.

This could have been a deadly mistake. He’d seen enough of Flint’s fighting skill at close quarters to know that in hand-to-hand combat he stood a less than stellar chance against the pirate captain. He would need to rely on Flint’s word (an absurdity!) that he had no intention of escape. That he had not secretly plotted with Long John Silver to do the exact opposite of what they’d promised. After all, he’d heard on the street they could read each other’s minds. But that was madness, wasn’t it? It had to be.

Utley stripped off his coat and placed it over the back of the solitary chair in the corner of the room, on top of Flint’s own black coat.

“Well, now we truly are equal in the eyes of god and men,” Flint said with that half-smirk that Utley had been growing accustomed to. He’d begun his ablutions and the water in the basin was rapidly turning from clear to opaque and tinged with the earthy brown of dried blood.

“Except one of us is still a pirate.”

“And the other a mutineer.” Utley startled at that. “What else do you call a soldier who defies his orders?”

“A man of principle?” Utley tried. It rolled across his tongue and left an acerbic taste in his mouth.

“You cannot return to England anymore than I can,” Flint said. “I’d be tried and hanged, you court martialed and subsequently also hanged. At the end of it, we’re just on the opposite ends of the same rope.” Or on the same end of two different ropes, Utley was starting to suspect.

“You shouldn’t give lip to the man about to press a blade to your naked throat,” Utley spoke with unintended hoarseness.

Flint grinned, water still dripping from his face, and then pressed the towel against his features, obscuring them from view. Utley looked down at the blade in his hands, idly probing the edge with the callused pad of his thumb. He judged it sufficiently sharp.

“You should’ve brought scissors,” Flint stated with a bored look at the tray. “And a mirror. Not to say you don’t look like a man of your word, Lieutenant Utley, but I’ll only have your opinion on whether you think I look presentable once we’re done here.”

“Who’re you trying to impress?” Utley asked.

Utley was a tall man himself. Easily accustomed to looming over someone. And yet, here was fucking Flint, sitting on his cot, with his collar unbuttoned so low that Utley could make out the russet hair peppered across his pronounced pectorals, and it made Utley feel small, despite the blade in his hand or his rigid, upright posture. The hair on Flint’s chest looked soft and Utley wondered how it would feel against the palm of his hand. He took a bracing breath, steadying himself against the inevitability of having to touch the prisoner before him.

Flint, in the meantime, hadn’t answered his question, his eyes shifting as if he was remembering the reason he’d decided to make himself look presentable in the first place. Whatever those reasons were, they’d remain obscure for the time being. Just as obscure as Utley’s reasons for playing along, he supposed.

“How shall we do this?” Flint’s eyes finally fixed on the blade in Utley’s hand.

“Go ahead and lather yourself up where you want me to shave you,” Utley replied, keeping his voice as steady as he planned to keep his shaving hand. But this was ridiculous! He should have simply left the man to his business and come what may. He’d mutineed with the rest of his regiment because the thought of leaving without executing revenge against the pirate menace was unthinkable. To choose one kind of dishonor over a very different type, the type he could not forgive _himself_ for. And now here he was, about to help the aforementioned menace with his grooming habits, and for what? Because _his head itched_?

When he had finally ventured a look at Flint, he found him with his neck and cheeks lathered up, gazing up at him with a look that could have best been described as taunting. “We’ll see how you do with the neck and work up to the head,” Flint said with a smirk.

“Get in the fucking chair,” Utley said. The chair had both their coats hanging over the back now, his own carefully placed over the black of Flint’s, in a facsimile of a strangely tender embrace. Flint rose with his usual nonchalant shrug and relocated to the chair, his thighs once again opening like the gates of Hades from whence Utley could not tear his eyes. He wanted to kneel between those legs, place his face close to Flint’s own, and trace the blade down over the powerful line of his jaw. He had not been this physically drawn to another man for a very, _very_ long time. “Don’t try anything,” he felt compelled to warn as he assumed his position behind Flint and gently pressed his fingers against his prickly skull to guide his head backwards.

“What would I try? You have a blade to my throat.”

Utley had no doubt that if Flint wanted to disarm him, to take the blade for himself, press it against Utley’s throat, he would have been powerless to stop him. The green of Flint’s eyes flickered and disappeared, and his body melted into the chair, the way his form always seemed to melt against everything it touched. And Utley let his own eyes fall closed for a moment, allowing himself to imagine that body melting against his own. Not in mortal struggle, but in sweet surrender. His palm sweated against the ivory grip of the razor while he reached over to press the fingers of his free hand against Flint’s chin, to stretch out that thick, powerful column of his neck.

Time stood still as he worked in the quiet cell, bereft of a ticking clock. Their breaths synchronized and blended together with each stroke of the razor he drew in the direction of the grain of Flint’s hair. Each stroke exposing vulnerable skin. Neither of them spoke. Nor was Flint’s mouth curved into a mocking caricature of a smile. His lips were soft, and somehow Utley knew he’d find them warm if he were to lean down and press his own lips to them. His eyelashes were long and light-colored like a field of wheat, but his beard was made of rust and blood, and Utley was beginning to regret not bringing scissors, just as Flint had said. That thing was beginning to overgrow with fierceness, even while it still looked soft to the touch. Utley’s thumb brushed against the bristles as he handled Flint’s face, turning him from one side to the next with an expert touch, blade sliding deftly against the skin of his cheeks, avoiding leaving any knicks in the skin. The beard _was_ soft. His skin too was soft, as Utley’s thumb slid down the column of that neck, testing the quality of his work.

Then Flint opened his eyes and Utley straightened, pulling away, and flipped the razor closed with a definitive flick of his wrist.

“This will do for today, don’t you think?”

He walked in front of Flint to size-up his handiwork. Flint’s eyes traveled down Utley’s body, settling at just below his waist, where Utley burned with shame at the knowledge of what Flint would find. But no - to hell with shame! Instead of looking away, Utley directed his own gaze to the tantalizing crescent of Flint’s open thighs, and was gratified to see he hadn’t been completely wrong in his suppositions.

The same end of two opposite ropes, indeed. And both hard.

“I’d still appreciate having the chance to trim my beard,” Flint said. “And you haven’t even done my head yet,” he pointed out.

“I can’t spend the entire day in here with you. I have duties.” Utley tugged at his own coat, freeing it from the press of Flint’s back so he could wrap himself in it like a cloak of invisibility.

“You don’t seem like the kind of man to leave a job half-done,” Flint said, and that knowing smirk was back, stretching those generous-looking lips along the corners.

“Tomorrow,” was all Utley said as he tossed the towel into Flint’s lap, covering the thing that should have known better over there. Clearly, neither one of them had any real sense.

“Until tomorrow, then,” Flint’s voice followed Utley out the door and wrapped around his gut as he slid the lock back into place, panting heavily into the damp darkness of the fortress’ corridor.

 

 

 

***

There was nothing but dead silence from the beach. Utley didn’t know where the pirates have hidden the last bit of the _Urca_ treasure, but he knew enough not to expect it to show up on their doorstep this soon. What was he doing down there, Long John Silver? He didn’t look at all thrilled when Flint had offered himself up as collateral. There was a moment that passed between the two of them that Utley couldn’t at the time put his finger on. Now, he lay awake and wondered. _Trust me_. It echoed in the subterranean tunnel as Flint had crossed the grating to stand at their side.

He didn’t remember the last proper sleep he’d gotten since it happened. He closed his eyes and his thumb burned with the memory of the way the skin of Flint’s neck stretched out at his touch, smooth and slightly slick from the soap, and warm. So warm.

The small vial in his pocket made Utley’s skin crawl like an anthill, it made him feel like a liar and a thief, even more so because Flint would surely see through this, just like he saw through everything else. He should’ve talked to the Governess, asked her to assign another jailer to her most important prisoner. Surely, he was better utilized somewhere else. But where? Where was he to go when the only thing in the world that was certain was that he had nowhere to be.

He set the small scissors next to the square pocket mirror and a small brush, and then, at last, sheepishly, pulled the vial out of his pocket and placed it next to the other accoutrements. “For your beard,” he said.

“Is that oil?” Flint asked, his eyes agleam with a demonic flame in which Utley was already immolated before he ever set foot inside this cell.

Utley’s throat was dry as he replied, “Yes.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, Lieutenant.” Flint picked up each item and examined it as if intending to tear the deepest secrets from each object’s unmalleable form. “I suppose you’ll be wanting these back right away?” Flint asked, fingering the scissors. Utley caught himself staring at the rings on the pirate captain’s fingers. Rings that once belonged to long dead men, he imagined. He’d seen those hands kill before, with ruthless precision. “This is useful,” Flint said, twirling the vial with oil in those same fingers. His nails were shockingly well kept, Utley noticed. So, Flint liked to take care of his appearance even when he wasn’t sitting idly in prison as well. Perhaps all this was not just a ritual concocted for the sole purpose of torturing him. “Not feeling conversational today?”

Utley raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize you required a Greek chorus for your monologue,” he said.

“There’s the clever man I know,” Flint chuckled.

“You don’t know me,” Utley quickly retorted.

“I _think_ I know you,” Flint said with his usual shrug. “I used to _be_ you. I thought I knew who I was, where I stood, whom I served, where my loyalties lay. Until I didn’t, and then all that was left was to burn the world down.”

“I do not wish to burn the world down,” Utley replied. And yet, and yet… “If the world is on fire, it is not an inferno of my own doing.”

“Then why do you not douse the flames? Why kindle them?”

“I’m not the one trying to kindle anything, _Flint._ ”

He got to him. Every time. Utley wanted to take those little scissors out of the man’s hand, to toss them against the wall. Perhaps to press them into his jugular and watch his blood pour forth into his hands. What would it be like then, to be the man who had killed Captain Flint? Another order disobeyed - for better or worse? Who could tell anymore. But Flint, Flint was there, in his power, his for the taking. If only…

If only that weren’t the biggest lie Utley had told himself of all the lies yet.

Instead, he stood frozen to his spot, watching helplessly as Flint carefully molded his beard into a tight and neat shape around his face. The clippings of russet fell to the floor at their feet and Flint picked up the small brush passing it over the remaining bristles, coaxing a deep shine out of the hair as if by a conjurer’s hand.

“Not needing the oil?” Utley asked, the words bouncing off the dark walls and resounding in his own ears like the cackling of numerous hags.

“I had other uses in mind for this,” Flint said as he rolled the vial between his fingers. His eyes traveled upwards along the length of Utley’s torso and paused on the place where his neck’s flush was hidden by his scarf. “Did you really bring this for my beard, Sebastian Utley?”

“I should go,” said Utley.

“You’re not the one held prisoner here,” said Flint.

Utley did not need to look into the small mirror to imagine his own face. The high flush on his unshaven cheekbones, his eyes shining with the hunger that had been written across his features since the first night he’d brought Flint to this cell. It was another lie Flint told; he _was_ the one encaged, trapped, defeated.

“Please…” Utley replied, the words falling helplessly from his lips as Flint took a step towards him.

“I never did thank you properly for doing me the favor of shaving me yesterday. You have a soft touch for a career soldier.”

“Stop,” Utley said and Flint did, the smile falling from his face like a broken vase.

There was nothing holding him in place. Why then was it so difficult to turn on his heels and walk away, as if his boots had been filled with lead? When he slid the lock into place again and rested his forehead against the damp stones of the dark corridor, only then did Utley remember he had left the scissors with Flint. He could send someone else in there to retrieve them, of course.

He wouldn’t. He knew he wouldn’t.

 

 

 

***

Utley was leaning against the heavy door of Flint’s cell again, his head, as unshaven as his face, occasionally slamming against the unforgiving wood next to the grating.

“Have you come back for the scissors, Lieutenant?”

All he had to do was turn his head, and Utley would see that gemlike shine of Flint’s eyes across the bars. The door too was warm, as if heated by their joint weights where they had both propped up the heavy wood on opposing sides.

“She told me to give you anything you needed,” Utley found himself uttering with a bitter chuckle.

“Here,” a flicker of pale skin, and then Flint’s fingers pushing through the grate, “I don’t want you to feel unsafe.” The scissors dangled, suspended by one loop from Flint’s finger.

Utley smiled, reaching up. “It isn’t the scissors that make me feel unsafe,” he confessed, letting his fingers touch Flint’s, the scissors pressed between them like a last rampart that still held in a broken fort. He had turned now, facing the cell door, facing the glimmer of Flint’s gaze.

“I mean you no harm,” Flint said in a measured tone. His fingers were warm too, warm like his neck had been when Utley had dared drag his thumb down the long, thick column of it, towards the dip between his clavicles. “And I meant you no offense. Earlier.”

Utley licked his lips and swallowed. He let go of Flint’s hand, the small scissors rested in the palm of his own hand now, the innocent bystanders of this pathetic scene. “You are the enemy,” he said.

“There are no enemies here, Sebastian,” Flint’s soft voice cooed like a lullaby. “Only two men who cannot possibly know what the future holds.” Utley’s eyes were closing. On the other side of that door was the promise of something, something dangerous, and hot like the flames of Hell, and _real_ in a way few things have felt as real before. Flint had touched a brand to his soul and he had no way to extinguish that fire except to drown it in Flint himself.

“Just tonight,” Utley whispered into the darkness.

“As you wish.”

“And what do you wish? James?”

“Open the door, Sebastian.”

 

 

 

***

In the darkness of the cell, Flint’s body was a voracious vortex, pulling Utley beneath the waves. His arms were wrapped around Flint’s neck at last, and it radiated with even more warmth than he remembered. His hands caressed the back of Flint’s skull, the short bristles of his hair that must’ve felt quite a bit like the back of his own head. Their foreheads collided, as did their teeth, teeth that sucked on Utley’s lower lip with a soft growl.

He had left a trail of his clothes leading up the foot of Flint’s prison cot and had finally fallen into it, fallen into the heat of Flint’s embrace, tasted kisses from those lips that felt just as soft as they looked, even while they sucked what Utley was sure would blossom into bruises onto his neck and chest.

Flint’s fingers pressed into the folds of his body, scooping him up as if he was nothing, as if he was snow about to melt in Flint’s grip. One of the globes of Utley’s ass was grasped firmly with a wandering hand, rings that would leave imprints in his flesh if Flint kept kneading at him like that. He wished he would never stop, shamelessly thrusting into the heat of his embrace, pressing hungry, open-mouthed kisses into the skin of the neck he had personally shaved only the other day. Flint’s blood pounded against Utley’s tongue, pulsing in his veins. The vague taste of soap still lingered there, along with another scent, the scent of a man.

A heated whisper of “Love you” tickled Utley’s nipple as Flint’s mouth slid down his body. In the darkness that had enveloped them, who could say whom those words were meant for. Many years ago, Utley too had rolled them around on his own tongue in the middle of the night, spoke them to the empty air, if only to see what it had felt like to speak such a sentiment aloud.

The moan Flint emitted when he wrapped his mouth around Utley’s engorged cock was nothing short of filthy, and it drowned out Utley’s own moan as he turned towards the pillow and attempted to muffle himself. The sheets around him were stale and reeked of the tower’s mildew, yet all he absorbed was the delicate aroma of Flint’s arousal, mingling in the air with his own, and he spread his thighs wider, presenting himself to Flint, all of himself. In the darkness, no one could see him blush.

Flint shifted between his thighs, gone for a moment to reach for something, then back, along with his mouth that left a trail of excruciating pleasure in its wake as it devoured him. My god, how long had it been for Flint? Utley only knew how long it had been for himself. And he wasn’t this brave back then, the last time, even though he was in the hand of his own best friend. But with Flint, he knew no fear, not even when a slick finger pressed against his opening in a new and insistent caress. Utley canted his hips forward, welcoming the intrusion as cold rings pressed against sensitive skin. Flint’s mouth bestowed burning kisses to the underside of his cock as his fingers probed and rubbed inside him. Utley’s breath sped up, soft moans and prayers intermittently falling from his lips as his fingers clutched at the back of Flint’s head. “So good,” Flint whispered before swallowing him whole, working over his leaking cock with the muscles of his throat. _Dear God_ , Utley was so thankful he hadn’t cut that throat! His clever fingers twisted and turned, brushing just _there_ \- “Oh god!” - just there - “Don’t stop!”

_Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck…._

Nothing, nothing had ever felt this good before. Nothing, nothing ever had the right to feel this good. Utley was biting on his own fist as Flint sucked the last of his emissions from his pulsating cock. And then, Flint’s hands were on his hips again, turning him as he melted into the cot, his body buzzing and humming with aftershocks of pleasure. His face landed in the musty pillow as Flint’s weight pressed down on top of him again, gloriously wrapping his heat around Utley’s lax, jellyfish limbs. Flint’s thigh was between his thighs, spreading them, and then - ah yes - that grooming oil really was being put to good use again.

Utley let out a long moan as Flint slid inside him, letting the burn settle and spread. Flint’s hand pressed against his mouth to muffle his cries as his hips slammed forward, fucking another moan out of Utley’s throat. Utley breathed in the scent of oil and the unmistakable musk of his own loins from Flint’s fingers. “Hush,” Flint breathed into his neck, mouth pressing to the back of his head, “You’re so good, you feel so good.” Utley moaned into Flint’s hand again, head thrown back as he allowed himself to be completely filled. He wanted Flint inside him, around him, dripping down his thighs, he wanted Flint’s teeth-marks to survive the night because he wasn’t sure he could. How many more times would he die in Flint’s arms before sunrise?

The hair on Flint’s thighs was soft under Utley’s clutching fingers as Flint’s teeth clamped over his trapezius muscle and his body shook like a rattling carriage, then stilled. His breath was settling hot and moist against the vertebrae on the back of Utley’s neck. “So good,” he whispered again, his hand falling from Utley’s mouth as his arm settled around his chest. A holdfast from which he was powerless to flee.

_Just tonight_ , he had said. It was only supposed to be that one night. Beyond the walls of the fort was a treasure and a war and Long John Silver. Utley shifted and Flint caught his side before he could get too far.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m relighting the candle,” Utley whispered back.

“Aren’t you worried someone might look through the grate and see?”

The flame flickered back to life, making the shadows dance along the dark wall. “I wanted to see you,” Utley said. “Like this. I may never see you like this again.” His hand rested against Flint’s cheek. He had done quite the decent job shaving him, all things considered. He was beautiful, and it made Utley’s heart ache that perhaps he was the only person in the world who could see this indisputable truth.

“No man may truly know what the future holds,” Flint said, echoing the sentiment that accompanied his initial invitation.

“But he will come for you?” Utley said as he lay back down, pulling Flint close to his own naked body again. “With the treasure?”

“He will.” Flint’s eyelashes looked darker like this, when they cast long shadows over the curves of his cheeks. “Where will you go when you leave this fort?” Flint asked. “Would you really return with Woodes Rogers to England?” When Utley made no reply, he continued. “He will not protect you, you know.”

“Would you offer me a better future?” Utley attempted to phrase the question as a jest.

“I would at least offer you another night,” Flint replied with a soft smile.

Utley craned his neck up and pulled Flint into another kiss. Another night must have been all that Scheherazade had to hope for, after all, and look where it got her. And this night, _this night_ , was yet long from over.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out [this awesome art](http://liviladoodles.tumblr.com/post/175996934832/i-completely-missed-the-rare-pair-week-but-have) by @livila inspired by this fic!


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